Kristin's and Rhushabh's first encounter was brief and took place at a college party. Kristin remembers Rushabh was dressed up like a spanish flamenco dancer.

Their first meaningful connection didn't happen until December of 2009. Kristin was out at Cosmo with another guy. Somehow, Rushabh and Kristin started talking and making jokes. After that night, they stayed in touch via mutual friends.

Their first date was in March of 2010 at an Italian restaurant. About that date, Kristin told me, “Rushabh was so nervous. He didn’t let me say one word. He talked the entire time. It was literally the worst date I’ve ever been on. …But I knew everything about him by the end of the date.”

It was a friend who convinced Kristin to go on one more date. This time to the zoo, where they had a great time.

In the ensuing months, they played tennis, walked at Piedmont park, cooked dinners, and Kristin discovered Rushabh’s obsession with football. And in the ensuing years, they explored important questions, shared goals and dreams, and eventually they began to be able to see one another as a partner. And then in May of 2013, while Kristin was shopping at TJ Maxx, Rushabh broke into her place, dressed up her dog Monty in a tie, and put on nice music. When Kristin arrived, she thought there was an intruder, grabbed her dog, and ran out the door. When she came in the second time, she saw Rushabh was on one knee.

Although Tiffany met Matt in June of 2011 at a Taco Mac, there was already somewhat of a history between them. On Tiffany's first day on the job at PF Chang's, the chef hit on her. Tiffany quickly and confidently shot him down. And just as soon as she did, Tiffany's friend, who overheard the exchange, immediately said to her, “You need to marry Trivett.”

Coincidentally, not one but two of Matt’s friends, after meeting Tiffany, later told Matt that they had just met his wife.

And so Matt did what most men would do: He began to Facebook-stalk Tiffany. Her profile pic at the time was an image of her amongst camels in Egypt. And he compared this picture with his own profile pic at that time, which was a picture of himself hanging out of the car taking a picture of himself...And he remembers thinking, “This girl is way cooler than I am.”

And so at Taco Mac that night in June, Matt played it cool.

And so did Tiffany.

In the ensuing weeks and months, they went to coffee shops, attended pool parties, hiked together, played music, went jogging and rock climbing, worked out, and took road trips to Nashville and Baltimore. They even tried to write a book and a sequel together, neither of which exist today.

And in October of 2012, one evening at Matt’s parents’ cabin in Blue Ridge, Matt walked Tiffany outside to the balcony, where the stars were, as they described it to me, amazing. After watching Tiffany twirl beneath them for minutes, he brought her in close, got down on one knee, and asked for her hand in marriage.

The first glance for these two occurred in March of 2011 at the house party of a mutual friend. Liz was coming back from the embassy in Moscow; Josh, from the embassy in Bulgaria. Josh saw Liz seated from across the room and remembers thinking, “Who is that person?” He walked over to her, flipped an empty chair around, and cornered her in the living room. And they talked.

For six straight hours.

Only when they went back outside to get drinks did they realize…that cops had broken up the party, everything had been moved inside, and everyone was gone.

A few days later, Josh took Liz to what they remember as a “swanky speak-easy.” Josh wore a nice suit, which made Liz think he had a nice job.

In the ensuing months, they went to restaurants, played cribbage and backgammon together, talked about politics, foreign affairs, Congress, the world. And sometimes they read together, not talking at all.

In the ensuing years, they explored important questions, traveled the world together to places including but not limited to Iceland, Guatemala, Mexico, Belize…Montreal, Paris, Istanbul, Jerusalem, San Francisco, & the Cape. They shared goals and dreams, and eventually they began to be able to see one another as a partner.

And then in September of 2012, Josh replicated his and Liz’s first trip together by traveling to Reykjavík, because as he put it to me, “I just wanted to take Liz back where I saw her the happiest.” One evening, after visiting a geothermal spring and the restaurant Blue Lagoon, Josh pulled out a ring box. And Liz almost fainted…because the box was empty. Because Josh wanted Liz to pick out the ring, which she eventually did, in Paris.

To have close friends is to approach a fuller life. In The Four Loves, the author CS Lewis recalls the days when he and his friends met regularly, pulling up chairs around a small table in an Oxford pub. He describes how one person at that table has the ability, just by being around, to bring something unique and different out of each of the others. For Lewis, when any one person at the table is surrounded by close friends, and when those close friends are all drawing out of the one something distinctive and something exceptional, then and only then is that person most wholly himself or herself. He writes, “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.”

This evening Ryan and Ashley want to take a moment of their wedding ceremony, the beginning in fact, to honor one of those friends, one who sits at their table, who is not able to be here today.

For the next eleven months, Josh Hemmings is on active duty in the Republic of Iraq. In your programs you will notice that he is named honorary groomsman because in Ashley’s words “he certainly would have been in the wedding party had he been in town.” Ryan and Ashley want to communicate their excitement that Josh’s family is in attendance in his place this evening. And as the harpist performs a rendition of “America the Beautiful,” I would like to invite us all to acknowledge the service and the friendship of Corporal Joshua Chandler Hemmings of the United States Marines.

Liz and Doug met four years ago in Santorini, while they were both on vacation with their parents. Liz and Doug have told me the whole story, and I would like to share it with you...But not in my own words.

When I officiate weddings, I often make it my practice to reach out to the friends and family of the bride and groom with a few questions to help me get to know the couple better. Liz's late father, Ray, was one of the ones who responded to my email a few months ago. And his words are better than mine. On October 4, he wrote,

"By any measure, especially for the 21st Century, you have two atypical human beings here, that will make you very proud…Perhaps what has most impressed me about this future union is DESTINY, playing a role far and beyond normative parameters in bringing both together. Home in Puerto Rico, I was originally planning a wedding anniversary surprise trip to Greece for my wife. Lizzy, despite being overloaded with work, helped me. But she felt she couldn't make the trip due to work.

"Well…DESTINY! She surprised us knocking on our door in Athens, Greece. The evening my wife & I were to see the famous Santorini Sunset, Lizzy was to take some kind of adventure tour, which turned out to be full. Instead, she thought she'd rather see the sunset…but from a small galley, DESTINY! It turned out Doug was on board with his family and asked Lizzy to dinner. Both returned home to the States, and Lizzy remained in an undecided state for several years. Finally, she visited San Francisco to see Doug. She saw the light, and the rest, about to become history. Oh well, we could – though never would have – told her Doug was the one from the very start. DESTINY!

Now that you are both here, the first thing that I want to say to you is what a fantastic way to celebrate your love! With the rising of the sun, and the beginning of a new day. And while today is not your beginning…For your story began in the halls, a few classrooms, even a trailer, of a high school Language Arts department. Or perhaps it began with whispers in your ears from friends and acquaintances, convinced that this was the right woman for you and this was the right man for you, even before you had met one another. In fact, I wonder how many in attendance this morning secretly are taking credit for what is happening right now.

But the choice of a marriage partner, says author Mike Mason, is one of the very freest choices we make as human beings. And if anything has been made clear to me, it is that you, Chad, have chosen Bethany. And you, Bethany, have chosen Chad.

So while today is not your beginning, today is the beginning of a new way of living. It is for you the dawn of newness.